BBC

BSE labels (Louise Dysdale): nice white packages for everyday products (handcream, chocolate, etc) stuck to the wall each with a barcode with a cow in it – the label tells you which bits of cow are used in each product.

Design as conceptual and political activity, designers are not passive but play an active role in the interpretation of a brief.

Alcohol project (Amanda Turner): very strong anti-alcohol campaign (best here I thought) – three pieces – excellent poster (‘We all have our limits’) with whisky bottle marked with lines down its side, each line with words (first line – ‘Ahh that’s lovely’ down to ‘Ah’ll punch yir heed inn’ and domestic violence). Second piece, glass head filled with whisky with lines marked on forehead and cap placed on head. Line cap up with middle line, person is sober, line it up with bottom line, person is drunk, line it up with top line, person is steamin’ – really good. Also, piece with plate: first place (25 Dec) is whole, with black and white family picture on it, second plate is just a fragment of the first (1 Jan), third plate is the same plate glued back together but with a section missing (8 Jan). Very personal work because her own father is alcoholic.

Personal, powerful and political.

Dyslexia project (Matthew Wood): Nice project, he is dyslexic himself and has created some strong visual images to help people understand dyslexia and to use with dyslexic children. Thick pencil made out of thorny rose branch, line of four books, one shrinkwrapped in plastic, one with nails coming out of it, one with a bolt through it, one with a padlock on it. Not much to say about these but images speak for themselves.

Communication allows us to participate in society, typography is a ‘container for language’, an interesting exploration of what happens when language is ‘mis-communicated’.

Colour blindness project (Mark McLaren): again, images speak for themselves so not much explanation needed, but nice box of pencils with descriptions of how he (as colour blind person) sees the colours – definitely green, purple but could be red, blue but might be green – this sort of thing.

The world through blunted sight, a special perspective on the world through colour blind eyes – it’s a constructive way to reveal a problem which is difficult to understand.

Dog’s Dinner campaign (Harry Kinloch): strong, funny advertising campaign for dog food: Disgusting to us, delicious to them. Quirky because the people that he has photographed with the dogs are really disgusting looking.

Clever to use the traditionally negative aspects of a product to attract the customer, Humour is a powerful selling tool.